American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

Saville, Marshall H. (Marshall Howard), 1867-1935
birth: June 24, 1867
death: May 7, 1935
Marshall Howard Saville was a curator in the Dept. of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1894 to 1907. He was the first curator of Mexican and Central American archaeology at the museum, and an authority on the cultures and artifacts of these regions. Saville's acquisitions for the museum during his expeditions of 1896-1904 established the department's leadership in this country. Saville received his training in archeological fieldwork from Frederick W. Putnam of Harvard's Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology. His first field trip was to the Yucatán in 1890, which led to his 1891-1892 study of Copán, Honduras. In 1894 Saville became assistant curator in anthropology at the AMNH, and in 1896, after Mexico enacted a law allowing the museum to carry out research in its territory, Saville explored the Mayan ruins of Palenque in Chiapas. In 1897 he began excavations that continued until 1904 at Mitla, Monte Albán and Xochicalco. Saville served on the host committee for the New York meeting, in 1902, of the 13th International Congress of Americanists, and represented the AMNH at the next meeting, in Germany. In 1907 he resigned from his curatorial duties, and from 1910 on he devoted himself to George Gustave Heye's plans for an American Indian museum. Saville was on the staff of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, from 1918 until 1932.